This invention relates to a method of constructing concrete buildings and particularly multistoried concrete buildings. The slabs of such buildings are poured into deck forms for setting and it is a purpose of the present method and novel apparatus associated therewith to simplify and economize the operations of moving and installing these forms. To place and hold the forms in position it has been known to use a plurality of mechanical or hydraulic jacks, fixed or mobile. For a large deck, a plurality of such jacks are required, introducing the need for expensive manpower for their manipulation. Other problems that have been encountered in the repeated reuse of slab deck forms has been that it has often been difficult to make an exact fit of a form from one location into another, even though the new location may be an upper storey of the same bay. It is also often difficult to drop the deck from the hardened concrete since it is relatively light and will not always fall from its own weight. Flying the deck to another position has presented the problem of cantilevering it from one storey while the crane cable is being attached. These problems are solved and prior methods are greatly simplified by the method to be explained.
It has further been known to support long, narrow form decks on relatively closely spaced prestressed concrete joists, but such decks have not been reusable and are knocked apart after each slab formation.